MT. THALAY SAGAR (6904 M / 22651 FT) EXPEDITION, 2008 ORGANISED BY : MOUNTAINEERS’ ASSOCIATION OF KRISHNANAGAR CHURCH ROAD, KRISHNAGAR-741101, NADIA, W.B. LEADER’S REPORT 1. Name of the Association : Mountaineers’ Association of Krishnanagar. 2. Name of expedition : Mt. Thalay Sagar (6904 MT./22651 FT.) Expedition, 2008. 3. Name of the Peak with height in metres and six figure co-ordinates : Thalay Sagar – 6904 mtr. / 22651 ft. - 30o 51’ 29” N / 78o 59’ 50” E. 4. Nominal roll of team : I. Shri Basanta Singha Roy – Leader of the expedition and climbed Mt. Thalay Sagar (6904 mtr.) II. Shri Asok Roy – Reached upto Camp-I (16000 ft.). III. Shri Ajoy Krishna Bhattacharya – He was the Equipment In-charge and reached upto Camp – II (17500 ft.). IV. Shri Subrata Brahma – He was the Photographer & Medical Officer of the expedition and reached upto Camp – II (17500 ft.). V. Shri Biswanath Saha - He reached upto Camp – II (17500 ft.). VI. Shri Tapan Roy – He was the Quarter Master and Manager of the expedition. He stayed at Base Camp. VII. Shri Bijay Sarkar – He reached upto Camp-I (16000 ft.). VIII. Shri Asim Kumar Mondal - He reached upto Camp-I ((16000 ft.). IX. Shri Ranjan Kumar – He stayed at Base Camp. 5. Liaison with local administration and other agencies (name, designation, address, phone No., e- mail ID). Assistance received or hurdles faced if any : We had informed the District Magistrate & Superintendent of Police of Uttarkashi District and the Principal of Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi about our mission. However, we received assistance from the Food Supply Department, Uttarkashi and the Divisional Forest Office, Uttarkashi. We had deposited all the necessary papers of our expedition to the concerned officials of the Forest Department of Gangotri and they had charged Rs.3850/- extra, as entry fee to the Gangotri National Park and Rs.50/- per head including members, Sherpas, HAPs and Porters. We had also deposited with them a refundable draft of Rs.5000/- which was purchased in favour of DFO, Uttarkashi. After our returning from the expedition on 03/9/2008, the officials of Gangotri Forest Department returned the draft to us. We had taken back 10 k.g. garbage from the mountain at Gangotri but the forest officials did not check whether we had actually taken back the garbage from the mountains or not. 6. Approach March (Road head to Base Camp). Dates, Co-ordinates and altitude of enroute camps. Any significant information, passes negotiated, river crossings etc. Attach route marked on map. : We hired 29 Porters through “Highland Treks N Tour”, an agency of Uttarkashi to carry our loads from Gangotri to the Base Camp i.e. Kedartal. Trek started from Gangotri (10300 ft.) on 15/8/2008 towards south. Transit camp was established on the true left bank of Kedar Ganga in between Bhojkharak and Kedarkharak at an altitude of 14000 ft. (10 k.m.) Next day i.e. on 16/8/2008 Base Camp was established on the bank of Kedartal (7 k.m. - 15315 ft.). 7. Route opening and setting up of higher camps. dates, description on features encountered, technical / climbing difficulty involved, techniques and equipment utilized to negotiate. Snow and rock condition, location of camps with six digit co-ordinates and altitude. Attach suitably marked maps / sketches. : From Base Camp (15315 ft.) to Camp-I, the route towards south. We stayed at Base Camp on 17/8/2008 for rest, acclimatization, re-arrangement of our ration and getting ready our equipments. For the next 2 days we were busy to ferry loads to Camp - I. 5 members and 4 Sherpas ferried loads. We proceeded through the lateral moraine ridge. After trekking 1 hour 30 minutes over the moraine ridge, we entered into a glacier. Then we proceeded again over the boulder zone. Myself, Ajay Bhattacharjee, Subrata Brahma and Biswanath Saha and 4 Sherpas with Cook occupied Camp-I. We established Camp-I at an altitude of 16000 ft. (approx.) below the Bhrigupanth Peak on 20/8/2008. From Camp – I to II – The first one and half hour trekking from Camp-I to Camp-II was through the lateral moraine towards south. It was an easy walk over the boulders. Another 1 and half-hour trekking was upwards through the northern rocky slopes of Thalay Sagar peak. 5 members and 4 Sherpas ferried loads from Camp-I to Camp-II on 21/8/2008. Ranjan Kumar and Asim Mondal who stayed at Base Camp returned home due to unavoidable circumstances. We took 3 hours to reach Camp-II and 2 hours for returning Camp-I. Next day i.e. on 22/8/2008 we were confined to Camp-I due to very bad weather. On account of illness of Ajay Bhattacharjee, we took the decision that the next day i.e. on 23/8/2008, Ajay will go back to Base Camp along with Subrata Brahma and Biswanath Saha. On 23/8/2008, myself along with 4 Sherpas occupied Camp-II at an altitude of 17500 ft. on a rock base. Subrata and Biswanath along with Ajay left Camp-I in the morning and returned there after reaching Ajay to Base Camp. Next day i.e. on 24/8/2008 Subrata and Biswanath along with Cook (Tilbahadur) occupied Camp-II. Camp-II was situated at the junction of north slope of ice and rock of Thalay Sagar peak. From there we got clear view of Jogin group of peaks towards west and Base Camp area towards north. From camp-II to Camp-III i.e. Summit Camp – Total climbing up this route is through ice, snow and rock wall. All along the routes from Camp – II to Camp – III i.e. Summit Camp, we fixed about 4000 ft. polypropylene rope. First we climbed up an ice wall and entered into a crevasse zone towards south. Then we moved towards south-west through on a snowfield. After 1 hour proceeding through over the snowfield, we started climbing the north wall of Thalay Sagar peak with the help of rope. Gradient was 60o to 70o. Due to huge open and covered crevasses, we could not climb up easily. We had to climb up to the bottom of rock wall of Thalay Sagar avoiding these crevasses. For ensuring our safety from avalanche from the hanging icefall of west ridge which connects Jogin Group of peaks and Thalay Sagar peak and huge crevasse, we avoided the easy high gradient snow gully to reach Camp-III. We preferred to climb through the bottom of the difficult rock wall instead of the snow gully. We took 3 days i.e. 24/8/2008 to 26/8/2008 to fix ropes from Camp-II to Camp-III (21000 ft.). We also ferried loads simultaneously with fixing ropes. 27th August, 2008 was our rest day. On 28/8/2008 myself along with Pasang Sherpa, Pemba Sherpa, Phurba Gyalgen and Tashi Sherpa started climbing to occupy Summit Camp at 7.00 a.m. Subrata Brahma, Biswanath Saha and Til Bahadur (Cook) stayed at Camp-II. We traversed through the bottom of the vertical north rock wall towards south-west and after climbing up 1500 ft., we turned towards south. From there the route was mixed with rocks, ice and snow. Rock piton and snow stake used in this route. We found many old ropes on this route. We took long 9 hours to occupy the summit camp. The Summit camp was established on a snow slope and on the junction of snowy west ridge which connects the Jogin group of peaks and vertical rock wall of Thalay Sagar. We pitched 2 tents on a vast snow slope. When we reached the summit camp, at that time high-speed wind was blowing there. 8. Detailed report on Summit Climb / attempts with list of summiteers / highest altitude achieved with date. A detailed description of entire climb including features encountered, technical / climbing difficulty involved, techniques and equipment utilized to negotiate, snow, ice and rock condition. On 29/8/2008 we started at 8.00 a.m. for route opening to summit. After climbing up 200 ft. over the snow slope towards east, we faced the vertical rock wall. We tried to avoid the vertical rock wall and find route through the bottom of the rock wall. Sometimes we managed to avoid the wall by traversing. We started fixing ropes through that rock wall. It took 5 hours to fix 500 ft. climbing ropes on this rock wall. We feared about the high-speed wind, which we had to face previous day. So we returned Summit Camp at 2.00 p.m. But there was no wind. Next day we started for fixing ropes at 8.00 a.m. Within 2 hours we reached the previous day’s position and then we started climbing up a snowy ridge. It was an easy climb but more risky. Both the sides of that ridge were sheer fall. Again we started traversing through the bottom of the vertical wall of Thalay Sagar. Now we faced a vertical wall which is about 100 ft. It was very difficult and risky to fix ropes on this wall but Sherpas managed to fix ropes in this route through a chimney like crack and after fixing total 1300 ft. climbing ropes throughout the whole day, we returned to summit camp at 6.00 p.m. That day also we did not face any high speed wind in the camp. We had already fixed 1800 ft. rope from Summit Camp to last rock wall of Thalay Sagar. Only 300 ft. snow wall was left.